have come to Alderney at all-more especially as she would there have been exposed to seizure, as being in a British port, if any suspicion should have arisen respecting her real character-when it was much easier for her to take in her armament off the French coast, I must express my surprise that it should be deliberately stated, by those who know that she never went to or near Alderney at all, and that no other destination of the vessel was known or surmised, to which ships could have been sent after her, that, by reason that Earl Russell, "instead of directing action to be taken by the navy, directed inquiries to be made by the treasury and home office, the Georgia escaped." Is it to be said that without having the least idea of any other destination than Alderney, the government were to send ships of war in all directions in quest of two vessels, neither of which could possibly be known to any officer in Her Majesty's navy? Even had the spot where the two vessels were to meet been known, it would scarcely have been possible for a ship from Plymouth-much less from Portsmouth, which is more than one hundred miles further off-to have overtaken them. The letter from Mr. Adams was not written till the 8th, and would appear, from Mr. Hammond's letter to that gentleman of the same date, to have been received in the afternoon of that day. Had instructions been telegraphed to Plymouth that afternoon, it would have taken some short time to carry the orders into execution. Steamships are not ready to start at five minutes' notice. From Plymouth to Ushant is some one hundred and twenty miles; and, on the 9th, the Georgia had left the French coast and was on her way upon the ocean. But for the delay occasioned by the breaking down of the Alar's machinery she would have been gone several hours sooner. There is a homely, but expressive, English saying, that "Any stick serves to beat a dog with," but one must have a most determined intention to beat the creature to make such a case as this a ground of complaint. It has been sought to fix the British government with the responsibility for damage done by this vessel on the ground that, until the 23d of June, Bold continued to be on the register as owner. It is true that it was not until this date that Bold informed the collector of customs that he had parted with the vessel, and returned the certificate of registry. No such consequence, however, as is contended for, at all follows. The ownership of a British vessel may be transferred, though the evidence of it, as afforded by the register, remains incomplete; and it would be absurd to suppose that Mr. Bold, if the true owner, lent his vessel to the confederate government, or failed to take care to be paid for her before he parted with her. The delay in canceling the registration was, no doubt, for the purpose of delaying as long as possible the disclosure of the real transaction. Mr. Squarey, the Liverpool solicitor engaged for the United States, being consulted on this point, gave the following very sensible advice: It does not appear to me the engagement of the crew can be treated as an offense against the act, because the only legal contract binding upon the crew was that appearing upon the articles. The men were not liable to do anything except what they had agreed to do by the articles; and from the statements of the men whom I saw, it did not appear that they knew, when they shipped, that it was expected or intended that they should serve on board a man-of-war or privateer. As regards the liability of the British registered owner to make good to the owners of the American vessel destroyed the loss sustained by them, I conceive it must depend upon the question whether those in command of the vessel at the time can be considered to have been the agents of the British owner. If they were such agents, and there was any evidence to show that the destruction of the American ship could be considered as an act within the scope of their authority, I have no doubt that the owners would be liable; but it appears to me that the circumstances to which I have previously referred go very far to rebut the presumption that such agency existed, and to prove that, in destroying the American vessel, the officers and crew were acting, not for the British owner, but for the government of the so-called Confederate States. In such case I do not think that any liability could be established against the British owner, for it is now well established that the mere fact of being on the register of the ship does not involve liability for the acts or engagements of the master and crew, and that such liability is in fact a question depending upon express or implied agency in every case. Although, therefore, I do not see how a British owner is to be made liable, there is, in my opinion, a case which justifies the American Government in bringing the matter before the notice of the British government, and requiring explanations from that government of the circumstances under which a British vessel is found to be engaged in the destruction of vessels belonging to American citizens.1 It appears to me, therefore, beyond all question clear that no charge of negligence can by possibility attach to Her Majesty's government in respect of this ship. And I confess it was not without surprise that I heard one member of this tribunal say that, but that Mr. Adams had declared in favor of the British government on this occasion, he should have been prepared to pronounce 66 a more severe" judgment. If such views are to prevail, the responsibility of neutrals will be a serious thing indeed. It only remains to be added in respect of this vessel that a prosecution was instituted by the government under the foreign-enlistment act, against Jones and Highatt, two members of the firm of Jones & Co., of Liverpool, by whom the men had been engaged to serve on board. the Japan, and as to whom it was alleged that they had engaged the men for the purpose of their enlisting in the confederate service when the true character of the vessel was declared. The case was tried before me at Liverpool, when both defendants were found guilty by the jury, but points of law were reserved involving considerable difficulty, particularly that the men, at the time they were engaged at Liverpool, were not aware of the ulterior purpose which the defendants were alleged to have had in view. On the defendants being brought up for judgment, the defendants having consented to abandon the points reserved, and to forego an intended application for a new trial, an arrangement was come to between the counsel for the Crown and the counsel for the defendants that a fine of £50 should be imposed on each of them. The punishment might, at first sight, appear inadequate, but looking to the legal difficulties, it was, on the whole, I think, a prudent arrangement; it having been better that the law should be vindicated, though with a less degree of punishment, than that the chance of a defeat should be risked. The Shenandoah. CASE OF THE SHENANDOAH. This vessel, originally known as the Sea King, was a screw-steamer built at Glasgow in the year 1863, for the purpose of being 2 employed in the China trade. She had been seen by Mr. Dudley at Glasgow in 1863, who represented her as well adapted for warlike purposes, and thought she was likely to be bought for such purpose by the confederates.3 But in this he was mistaken. She was bought by private owners; Messrs. Robertson & Co., of London, acted as managing owners.4 She had from the beginning two 12-pounder carronades, such as mer chant-vessels are in the habit of carrying as signal-guns, but nothing more.1 In November, 1863, she left London on a voyage first to New Zealand, taking out troops for Her Majesty's government to Auckland, and from thence to Hankow for a cargo of tea, and with the latter she returned to London. She was a vessel built entirely for commercial purposes, and was in no respect whatever adapted for war. In September, 1864, she was sold by her owners, in the ordinary way of business, to a Mr. Richard Wright, a ship-owner of Liverpool. On the 7th of October, 1864, Wright granted a certificate of sale to Mr. P. S. Corbett, the master of the ship, empowering him to sell her within six months from the date of the certificate, at any port out of the United Kingdom, for a price not less than £45,000.2 After this the vessel cleared out, as for a trading voyage "to Bombay, calling at any ports and places on the passage, and any other ports or places in India, China, or Japan, or the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans, trading to or from, as legal freights might offer, until the return of the ship to a final port of discharge in the United Kingdom or continent of Europe; the voyage not to exceed two years. A crew was hired, and signed articles for the voyage in question, and the vessel sailed as if upon it, without any suspicion on the part of the crew, or of any one not in the secret, that she was intended for any other destination. The vessel underwent no change prior to her leaving; no equipment of her for the purpose of receiving any armament took place; she remained as she had been from the beginning, fitted for commercial purposes only. She was wholly unadapted to receive guns. She had on board only two small 12-pounder guns she had always had, such as merchant-vessels of her class always carry as signal-guns. She had no arms or munitions of war. When afterwards examined at Melbourne by Captain Payne, the latter reported that "everything indicated that she was nothing more than an ordinary merchant-ship." He could not discover any magazine; there were no stands for small-arms, cutlasses, or pistols; no shot-racks were fitted, nor could he see any shell-room aloft. "There is nothing," he says, "to protect her machines from shot and shell; in fact, her boilers and the principal part of her machinery are above the water-line. Her bunkers certainly are between the machinery and the ship's side, but from their small dimensions they would offer but small resistance to shot. The most vulnerable part, viz, the boilers, is left quite unprotected." "I am altogether of opinion," adds Captain Payne," that there is nothing in her build, armament, (with the exception of two Whitworth guns,) and equipment that should call for more special notice than that. she is an ordinary merchant-vessel, armed with a few guns.” 4 It is plain, therefore, that till the Whitworth guns in question were put on board, there was nothing whatever on board the Sea King to attract attention, or to excite the slightest suspicion about her. That this was so is shown by the fact that the crew fully believed that she was really bound for the voyage to the East. But it appears that the Mr. Richard Wright who had bought the vessel was the father-in-law of Mr. Prioleau, the managing partner of the firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool; whereupon we are gravely told, in the case of the United States, that "the acquisition, by a near connection of a member of their firm, of a fast-going steamer, 1 British Appendix, vol. i, p. 725. 2 Ibid., p. 495. 3 Ibid., p. 496. capable of being so converted, and the proposition to send her to sea in ballast, with nothing on board but two mounted guns and a supply of provisions and coal, ought, of itself, to have attracted the attention of the British officials; and that the omission to take notice of the fact is a proof of want of the due diligence required by the treaty."" Not the slightest intimation, however, is given as to what notice should have been taken, or what could possibly have been done. There was nothing that could, in any way, have justified the detention of the vessel. In the foregoing statement we have, therefore, as it seems to me, an unwarrantable assumption. The Sea King left the port of London on the 9th October, and proceeded to Madeira, where she arrived on the 18th.2 In the mean time a small steamer called the Laurel had left Liverpool, having cleared for Matamoras and Nassau. She took out cases marked as machinery,3 but in reality containing two 33-pounder Whitworth guns, and four S-inch smooth-bore guns of 55 hundred-weight each, together with shells, small-arms, and ammunition for the use of the Sea King. 4 Mr. Dudley was somehow informed that the cases contained guns and gun-carriages, and believing they were intended to be mounted on the decks of the Laurel, wrote to Mr. Adams that he apprehended she was intended as a privateer. At the same time he admitted that he had no evidence to implicate her except the taking on the guns in cases. It is plain, therefore, that Mr. Dudley did not surmise any connection between the two vessels, one of which was starting from London, the other from Liverpool, and I am at a loss to see how any could possibly have been surmised. Lieutenant Waddell, the future captain of the Sea King, and the other officers, and seventeen men who were to form part of her crew, were also passengers in the Laurel. Before the Laurel left Liverpool, Mr. Dudley began to suspect that the guns put on board her were intended for another vessel, as they were more in number than would be required for a vessel of her size;5 but he was evidently altogether without any definite information about her. The Sea King arrived at Madeira about the 18th of October; the Laurel about the same time. The following day both vessels proceeded to some small islands called the Desertas, where the guns and warlike stores intended for the Sea King were transferred to her from the Laurel. Either then, or prior to leaving England, Corbett, acting on the power of attorney received from the owner, Wright, sold the vessel to the confederate government. According to his account the sale took place on the 19th. On that day the captain and officers took possession of her as a confederate ship. Captain Corbett informed the crew that he had sold the ship to the confederate government, that she was henceforth to be a cruiser in their service, and that he had delivered her up to them. Every effort was made, by persuasion and offers of large bounties and high wages, to induce the former crew to enter the confederate service on board the vessel; but, with the exception of two or three, all the rest, forty-two in number, refused, and were conveyed in the Laurel to Teneriffe, from whence they afterward returned to London. The confederate flag having been hoisted on the Sea King, she cruised thenceforward under the name of the Shenandoah. It must be, indeed, a stern stickler for neutral responsibility who could say that up to this point there had been anything for which blame could be attributed to Her Majesty's government. Not the slightest suspicion had attached to this ship, which was only known as a merchant-vessel, prior to her leaving England. But besides this, no offense whatever had been committed against British law. The ship had not been either "fitted out," "equipped," or "armed," within the United Kingdom or within Her Majesty's dominions. Built as a merchant-vessel she had been sold, as she stood, to the confederate government; and neither by the municipal law of Great Britain, any more than by that of the United States, nor by international law, was such a sale in any way illegal. The argument of the United States itself admits that "if the Shenandoah at this point of her history stood alone, and there had been no other cause of complaint against Her Majesty's government, the United States could not now hold Great Britain responsible for her original escape and armament.” No question, therefore, can arise as to the responsibility of Great Britain in respect of any damages done by this vessel prior to her arrival at Melbourne. The first that was heard of the Shenandoah by Her Majesty's government was from a letter of the 30th of October from Mr. Grattan, the British consul at Teneriffe. On the Laurel arriving at that place, the master, J. F. Ramsay, on presenting himself at the consular office, stated that he wished to land 43 passengers, who were to proceed to England by the next Liverpool steamer, and that these persons were the master and crew of the British steamer Sea King, of London, which vessel had been wrecked off the Desertas. The Laurel continued her voyage on the 22d instant. The master, on getting up steam, and not before, landed the above-mentioned seamen. The master of the Sea King, P. S. Corbett, did not call at the consular office, as is usual in such cases, either for the purpose of making a protest or to claim assistance. Therefore, on the 25th instant, Consul Grattan sent to desire his attendance, and demanded the certificate of registry of his vessel, in pursuance of instructions contained in paragraph No. 13 of the board of trade instructions. On handing in his certificate Corbett informed Mr. Grattan that his vessel had not been wrecked, but that she had been sold in London, and delivered to her owners on the high seas; and that himself and his crew had landed here for the purpose of returning to England as passengers in the West Coast of Africa mail-steamer, due at the port on the 31st instant. The consul, having been struck by the discrepancy between the statements of the two masters, made inquiries of some of the former crew of the Sea King, and having taken their depositions, and being of opinion that they contained evidence sufficient to substantiate a charge against the master, Corbett, of an infringement of the foreign-enlistment act, sent him in custody to England, at the same time forwarding the depositions of the men in a dispatch to Earl Russell.1 I will conclude the narrative as to what further happened in relation to Corbett before I pursue the further history of the Shenandoah. On the arrival of the depositions in England, the law-officers at first British Appendix, vol. i, p. 477. |